23
Jun
Macroeconomics of AI: Navigating threats and channelling opportunities
As AI disruption rapidly reshapes the M&A landscape, uncertainty around value creation, risk management and long-term strategic planning is intensifying. With agentic AI advancing faster than many firms can implement it, the real constraint is knowing where AI can be applied meaningfully and safely, and how this influences deal theses. This session will examine strategy, responsible deployment, sector dynamics and where defensible value will lie as AI models commoditise.
- How should leaders set AI strategy when agentic AI is advancing faster than organisations can realistically deploy it?
- How can corporates and sponsors use AI responsibly while ensuring value comes from organisational readiness rather than technology alone?
- Which sectors will scale AI fastest, and how will that adoption gap fuel capability‑driven M&A and consolidation?
- As AI models commoditise, where will defensible value concentrate: in data, infrastructure, or organisational capability, and how should this shape deal theses?
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SpeakersSamuel Kerr Head of Global ECM and Mergermarket EMEA Mergermarket
Ben Bishop Chief Product & Technology Officer Bright Software Group
Doug Newton, CFA Head of Investment Value Stream EQT Group
Isabella Gillström Vice President Hg
Rohit Shiralkar Senior Managing Director Arma Partners
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Ben Bishop is Chief Technology and Product Officer at Bright Software Group, a PE-backed B2B SaaS business serving 40,000 accounting practices and payroll bureaus across the UK and Ireland. He holds responsibility for product strategy, engineering, AI, and support across a nine-product portfolio, and his scope extends into commercial operations, M&A evaluation, and operating model design, reflecting the practical reality of leading transformation in a PE-backed business.
Over the past two years Ben has taken a multi-million-pound AI investment programme from business case to live products and architected the Accountant Operating System vision that now anchors Bright's AI narrative with its PE backer, Hg Capital.
His primary area of interest is the intersection of AI and regulated professional services. Where compliance-heavy workflows, mandated processes, and deep domain trust are in play, he argues that the moat is not the model — it is the context, the data, and the proprietary workflow intelligence that generic AI platforms cannot easily replicate.
Before Bright, Ben held leadership roles at Advanced , XCD, Sage Accountants Division, and IRIS. His career spans 35 years in B2B software, consistently in regulated markets under PE ownership.
He is a frequent speaker on AI strategy, product-led growth, and the practical realities of technology transformation at scale.
Isabella is a Vice President at Hg and focuses on software investments in the Regulatory & Compliance space. She works across Hg funds and portfolio companies to cover the Nordics and the UK software space driving new investment activity and portfolio M&A.
She joined Hg as a founding member of the Origination team. Prior to Hg, she worked as an investor at Allstate and began her career in banking at J.P. Morgan. She is Swedish and has spent over a decade in London.
Rohit Shiralkar is a Senior Managing Director at Arma Partners which he joined in 2014. He has over 15 years’ experience in technology investment banking, advising on over $50bn worth of global M&A transactions in the technology sector with a focus on Software.
He previously worked for Capital Strategy Corporate Finance, a technology M&A advisory boutique in London, where he advised companies across Software and IT services. He began his career in investment banking with Lehman Brothers in London. He has also previously worked in engineering roles in the US and Asia.